


Pearl Vacation

by HelenRichardson



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen, Oneshot, i get that it's a kids show but volleyball is a terrible name, i wanna go on a vacation to the mountains soo bad, uhhh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-03
Updated: 2020-06-03
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:47:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24516382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HelenRichardson/pseuds/HelenRichardson
Summary: After the events of Steven Universe Future, the Pearls go on vacation.
Comments: 10
Kudos: 39





	Pearl Vacation

**Author's Note:**

> This oneshot was inspired by [this picture.](https://twitter.com/sweetpotato_kil/status/1197172260479459328)  
> 

To Pearl’s surprise, it was Blue who had suggested they all go on a trip together. “I mean, you talk about how beautiful the earth is so much,” she’d said. “I think it’d be nice to see more of it.”

So, Greg had helped her find a little cabin up in the mountains, isolated enough that they could spend the whole weekend in solitude. Pink was happy to come along, and Blue convinced Yellow, so one Friday morning they all got into Greg’s Dondai and started driving west. 

Pink spent the entire drive glued to her window, gasping at every new thing she saw. “What is that thing? It’s all brown and hairy.” 

Pearl glanced to the right before turning her eyes back to the road. “That’s a cow.” 

“It’s cute,” Pink smiled. “Are there going to be cows at the cabin?”

“I don’t think so,” Pearl said. “That species isn’t native to mountainous areas.” 

“That’s too bad.” Pink dropped back down to her seat. 

“Good riddance, if you ask me,” Yellow said, pinching her nose. “Those things smell terrible.”

“It’s not _so_ bad,” Blue offered up from the backseat. She turned to Yellow. “Remember those organics from the Upsilon 9? The ones with the green fur. They smelled disgusting.”

Yellow leaned back in her seat and groaned. “I had managed to forget them until now.” Pearl glanced back at her in the rearview mirror and noted that Yellow was smiling.

“I never did get to see much of that planet,” Blue murmured. She was looking out the window, seemingly lost in thought. “It seemed pretty, though.”

“The plant life _was_ exquisite,” Yellow agreed. “I liked how everything was yellow.”

From the front seat, Pink stifled a giggle.

“Whose colony was it?” Pearl asked. “If it was Blue Diamond’s, she might have kept a record of the life there.”

Yellow frowned. “No, she wouldn’t have. She stopped doing that once Pink Diamond was shattered.”

“Oh.” Pearl stared straight ahead at the road and didn’t say anything.

There was silence in the car for a while after that. Eventually, the conversation turned to other things, and Pearl felt some of the tension in her shoulders fade. They reached the mountains without incident, and before she knew it Pearl was pulling up to the cabin. 

“ _This_ is a cabin?” Yellow asked as she stepped out of the car. She wrinkled her nose. “It’s so...unrefined.”

“It must be from a long time ago,” Pink said. “It looks sort of primitive.”

“It was actually built recently,” Pearl said. “Within the past fifty years or so.”

“But then, why isn’t it built out of better materials?” Yellow asked. “Humans know how to use steel and plastic now.”

“The design is meant to mimic primitive houses from this region,” Pearl said. “It’s a type of art. They build things that remind them of the past.”

“I don’t get it,” Yellow said as Pearl unlocked the door. “Why would they want to remind themselves of the past? They can do so much better now.”

“Maybe it comforts them,” Pink said. The four of them stepped inside and Pearl turned on the light. “Things must have been a lot simpler back then.”

Pearl shot Pink a curious glance as she shut the door. As their eyes met, Pink gave her a small smile and shrugged one shoulder, then moved into the living room to stare out the window. Blue sat down opposite Pink, who by now was perched up on the windowsill, face and hands pressed up against the glass.

Yellow had busied herself by examining every room in the cabin, and came back to announce that she wanted the biggest one. The others looked at each other and shrugged.

“Blue, you should be in the one across from me,” Yellow continued. “And you two can figure out the other rooms.” She gestured towards Pearl and Pink. 

“Alright,” Blue said. She turned to Pearl. “Well, now that we’re here, what do humans do in cabins?”

“Oh! Well, there are a lot of options.” Pearl tried to remember everything Steven and Greg had told her. “We could start a fire in the fire pit. But wait, I think we’re supposed to do that at night. We could go on a hike through the woods, or go swimming in the lake.”

“Swimming?” Pink perked up. “I haven’t done that in thousands of years.”

“You used to swim?” Yellow frowned at Pink. “When?”

Pink looked down at her toes. “Well, my Diamond would take Spinel and I to one of Blue Diamond’s colonies. It was supposed to be for Carnelians, I think. But it had big oceans that we could swim in.” 

“I remember that one,” Blue said. It had lots of little islands in the southern region.”

Pink nodded. “We would jump off the cliffs into the water. It was so much fun!”

“Well, that sounds extremely dangerous,” Yellow cut in. “Pink Diamond could have gotten cracked!”

“Oh, she almost did once,” Pink said. “She tripped as she was jumping and went spiraling straight towards another outcropping. Luckily, though, Spinel was able to spring off of the cliffside and push her out of the way.”

“Oh stars.” Yellow’s voice grew shrill. “She could have been shattered! And then, _you two_ would have been shattered!”

Pink shrugged. “We were used to it. You know how Pink Diamond was back then. She was never very careful.”

“Oh, yes,” Blue said. “It drove my Diamond mad with worry.”

Pearl turned away and slunk out of the room. As the chatter continued from the living room, Pearl started exploring the rest of the cabin. There were two bedrooms on the upper level, which she assumed were the ones Yellow had assigned to herself and Blue. On the opposite side of the house was a bathroom, a linen closet, and stairs that went down to a basement. The basement was sparsely decorated and had two beds in it, one against either wall. Pearl leaned back against one of the beds and sighed. 

“Pearl?” Pearl looked up. Blue was standing in the doorway. “We’re all going to go swimming in the lake. Do you want to come with us?”

Pearl sat up and smiled. “Sounds great.”

The four made their way out the back door and walked through the backyard. There was a small stretch of forest between them and the lake, so Pearl led them down the small path through the trees. Pink spent the entire time watching the wildlife. When a squirrel scrambled across the path, she jumped in surprise and delight. 

“I like this forest,” Blue said. “It’s very dense.”

“I’m surprised the humans haven’t cleared it out,” Yellow remarked. “It doesn’t make for the best view, with all of the undergrowth.”

“We’re walking through protected land,” Pearl said. “The humans decided that you can’t disturb anything outside of the path.”

“But why? They could use all of this wood to build something.” Yellow crossed her arms over her chest. “It’s a waste of resources.”

“Because they think it’s beautiful,” Pearl said. “Besides, destroying too much of the ecosystem could damage the natural balance, and then the land would be ugly and unusable.”

“They could just go somewhere else,” Yellow mumbled.

“They don’t really have the technology to do that yet.”

There was a moment of silence, before Blue spoke up from the back. “I think it’s beautiful, too,” she said. “I’d like to try and draw it, but I don’t think I could get the dappled lighting right with my tablet.”

“You should look into painting,” Pearl said. “It’s a completely different type of art, but a lot of artists use it to recreate pictures of nature.”

“Oooh.” 

After a few minutes of trekking through the afternoon heat, they stepped through the last of the trees to the beach. The lake was relatively large, and this high up in the mountains meant it was a crystalline, unpolluted blue. 

“Oh!” Pink clasped her hands in front of her face. “It’s beautiful!” She ran down the beach and dove headfirst into the water. “The water feels amazing!” she called out when she resurfaced. “Come on!”

Pearl jogged up to the water’s edge and began to wade in. It did feel nice, especially after their hike through the humidity. She waded in deeper and then leaned back, letting herself float further out. The cool water enveloped her, and Peal let out a contented sigh. “This was a great idea, Pink.”

“Thank you,” Pink said shyly. The two of them watched as Blue waded in, and then finally, Yellow. Blue joined the two of them quickly. “I can’t even remember the last time I went swimming,” she said. “It must have been thousands and thousands of years ago.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever done it before,” Yellow said, finally wading up to where they were standing. “But I will admit, it’s not bad.”

Blue giggled. “That means she really likes it.”

“You’ve never done it before?” Pink’s eyes grew wide. “Oh! Then you have to try diving!” She looked around, then spotted a dock a little ways down the beach. “Come on, this’ll be so much fun.” She grabbed Yellow’s arm and began to drag her towards the dock, with only mild protest from Yellow. Blue and Pearl looked at each other, shrugged, and began to follow.

When they reached the dock, Pink let go of Yellow’s hand to climb the ladder. “So you get a running start, and then when you reach the edge you jump as far out as you can,” she said. 

Yellow looked at the edge of the dock with concern. “I don’t know. Isn’t this how Pink Diamond was almost cracked?”

“That won’t happen this time,” Pink said. “There aren’t any rocks around, and back then we were jumping from much higher.”

Yellow looked down and stepped back. “I...why don’t you go first.”

“Okay!” Pink backed up almost to where the dock met the sand and then sprung forward, running as fast as she could towards the water. At the edge of the dock she leaped off and crashed into the water. She resurfaced a few seconds later, laughing. “See? It’s so much fun!”

Peal looked towards Yellow, who was still looking nervous. “I’ll go next,” she said. She backed up, got a running start, and jumped off the edge. 

The sound of her body hitting the water was equal parts loud and oddly peaceful. For a moment, she just let herself sink, enjoying the feeling of the water surrounding her once again. She felt her feet touching the bottom and opened her eyes. Everything was murky blue, except for the sandy ground. The sand had formed a texture from the constant motion of the waves. It was full of little ridges and shallow valleys. For some reason, that made her smile. She pushed off of the bottom and broke the surface with a big grin. 

“Come on! It was fun!” She swam towards Pink, barely moving out of the way before Blue appeared, having done her own grand leap off of the dock. She resurfaced a few seconds later, laughing as well, and swam over to Pearl and Pink. They all called out to Yellow, encouraging her to join them, until finally they saw her approach the edge of the dock and jump off. When she broke the surface, there was a sheepish smile on her face.

“That was nice,” she said, and Pearl couldn’t suppress the laughter that bubbled up out of her. Yellow let out a chuckle too, and she seemed to relax. 

“I have an idea,” Pink said when the laughter died down. “My Diamond and Spinel and I used to play a game when we were swimming. One of us would close our eyes and try to find the others just by hearing them. Only, if they called out to us, we’d have to answer.”

“I know that game,” Pearl said. “On Earth they call it Marco Polo.”

“Let’s do it!” Pink said. She looked at Pearl hopefully.

Pearl smiled and shrugged. “Sure.” She turned to Yellow and Blue. “Do you want to join us?”

“I don’t get it,” Yellow said. “What happens if you catch them?”

“You win,” Pearl said. “That’s all. It’s a game.”

“I’d like to try,” Blue said quietly. 

Yellow looked at her, then turned to the rest of them and shrugged. “Then I’m in.”

A little while later, Pearl found herself sitting on the dock, dragging her feet around in the water. Yellow and Blue were still out in the water, their game morphed into something other than Marco Polo. The late afternoon sun was slanting down, warming her skin. Pearl closed her eyes and tilted her head back.

“Hey.” 

Pearl looked down. It was pink, still in the water. “Mind if I join you?”

Pearl scooted over on the dock and patted the new spot beside her. “Of course.” She heard Pink swim over to the ladder and climb out. A new pair of feet joined the space next to hers in the water, and Pearl turned to Pink with a smile.

“They seem to be having fun,” she said shyly.

Pearl nodded. “I wonder when the last time they got to do something like this was.”

“Probably eight thousand years ago,” Pink said. “One time, I convinced them to join me and Spinel for a game of hide and seek. We used a huge forest in the Kyanite colony as our ground. It took us the better part of a day to find Blue.” She had a smile on her face as she remembered. “After that, we would come back as often as we could. At least, until Blue and Yellow got caught by their Diamonds.”

The smile had fallen from Pink’s face. “What happened?” Pearl asked quietly.

“Oh, I don’t know exactly. They were most likely just yelled at. But still, whatever the Diamonds said was enough to put an end to our games for a while. And then, well…” Pink pointed to her eye and shrugged. 

Pearl winced. “That’s terrible.”

Pink looked down at her lap. “Maybe. But things are better now.”

Pearl sighed and leaned back. “Yes, I guess they are.”

By the time the pearls began the trek back up to their cabin, the sun hung low in the sky. Blue and Yellow took the lead, talking and laughing with each other. It seemed that their trip to the lake had finally gotten the two of them to relax. Pearl said as much to Pink, who grinned back at her. “You think it was the jumping that did it?” she asked, and Pearl laughed.

As they clambered back up into the backyard, Pearl noticed the firepit. “We could start a fire, now, if you’d like,” she told the others. “It might help us dry off.”

“Let’s do it.” Blue was smiling. “If all vacation activities are as fun as swimming, I might need to stay here longer than the weekend.” Yellow rolled her eyes, but she was smiling, too. So Pearl gathered some logs and after a few minutes of working at it, set them ablaze. When she was done, Pearl sat back, happy with her work. Pink came and sat down next to her, already entranced by the flames. Blue sat at Pearl’s other side. Yellow frowned for a moment at the thought of sitting on dirt, but then seemed to suck it up and sat down next to Blue.

“So this is fire,” Pink said. Pearl could see the flickering reflection of the flames in her wide eyes. “I’ve never seen it up close before.”

“Really?” Pearl asked.

Pink shook her head. “There was never a reason for them. White took me long before the war, and you know Homeworld doesn’t use fire.”

“It’s primitive,” Yellow said. “Even humans can do so much better now.”

“But isn’t there something nice in the simplicity of it?” Blue asked.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Yellow said. “I just prefer the advancements we’ve made over the simplicity. I mean, I’m sure human quality of life was drastically improved when they invented modern heating.”

There was quiet for a moment. 

“You really don’t miss the past at all, do you?” Pearl asked.

“I mean-” Yellow’s cheeks flushed. “I guess not. There are some things that are nice about it but the here and now is much better.” She frowned at Pearl. “Don’t you feel the same way?”

Pearl shrugged. She looked up, saw that all eyes were on her, and sighed. “I was stuck on Earth for a long time. And yes it was amazing in a lot of ways. And yes, the here and now is probably the best moment in history to be alive. But I missed living on Homeworld. I missed you two.” She gestured towards Blue and Yellow. “And I miss knowing how things are supposed to be. I know I made my choice, and I’m fairly certain it was the right one, seeing how everything turned out.” She folded her hands in her lap. “I just wish I knew how to navigate around everyone, now that everything’s changed.”

There was quiet, except for the crackling of the fire.

“Well, I think I know how that feels,” Pink said. Pearl turned to her, and she gave a small smile. “I’ve been missing for thousands of years too. You’re out of place, I’m out of time. It’s not so different, really. Only, you got some time to get used to how things are now. I’ve just been tossed into this new world with no introduction.”

Pearl turned to her. “I didn’t even think about that. This must all be so confusing.”

Pink shrugged. “I got used to not knowing much pretty quickly. And I’m learning, it’s just slow.”

Pearl put her hand on top of Pink’s. “If you ever need something, know that I’m here. We can figure this out together.” Pink smiled up at her, and Pearl felt the briefest touch of that peace she had felt in the water wash over her. She turned back to face Blue and Yellow, who were exchanging a glance she couldn’t quite place.

“Yellow’s having trouble adjusting,” Blue blurted out. “She won’t say it, but she is.” They were still staring at each other.

Yellow’s voice took on a touch of shrillness. “Well, of course I am! But at least I’m trying to look forward. Blue is diving headfirst into all of these new things, but it’s a sham. She misses her Diamond more than anything.”

Blue flushed and turned away.

“Really?” Pink asked.

“It’s just, well, I thought we were close,” Blue said. She was looking down at the base of the fire, refusing to make eye contact. “She felt like a friend. But then Era Three came, and it felt like she wanted me to leave.”

“I miss my Diamond too,” Pink said. “It’s okay to miss her.”

Pearl glanced at Pink and nodded. “Maybe she thought you didn’t want to stay,” she said. “There’s a chance she misses you too. You should go talk to her.”

Blue smiled without humor. “What would I say?”

“You’d say, ‘Hello Blue Diamond, how are you doing?’” Pearl said. 

“She’ll say, ‘Pearl, why are you here? You don’t have to be around me anymore.’”

“And then you’ll say, ‘I know.’ Come on,” Pearl said. “The worst she could do is say no.”

“She won’t say no,” Yellow spoke up. She glanced at Blue. “You didn’t see her face when she dismissed you.”

Blue ran a hand through her hair. “Maybe I’ll go,” she said.

“If you do, I’ll come with you,” Pink said, “I’d like to say hello to Spinel.”

“It’d be nice to see Homeworld again,” Pearl said. “The last time I was there I spent most of the time fighting for my life. I’d like to have a chance to really visit.”

She glanced at Yellow, who realized everyone was looking at her expectantly and crossed her arms.

“Oh, all right,” she said, but she was smiling. “I’ll come with you.”

Pearl laughed, and that broke the tension. Pink and Blue began to giggle, and even Yellow let out a chuckle. 

“It’ll be strange,” Yellow said, once they had all sobered up. “To see it all again. It won’t feel the same.”

Pearl looked into the fire. Without thinking, she reached for Pink’s hand. “Everything is different now,” she said. And no one had anything to say to that.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! This is not the Best Writing I've Ever Done but it was really fun AnD really good characterization practice, which is something I'm working on. Hope you enjoyed!


End file.
